


Fascination

by FayJay



Category: Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-05-05
Updated: 2009-05-05
Packaged: 2017-10-02 09:04:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FayJay/pseuds/FayJay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anita is turning into the kind of thing Edward likes to hunt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fascination

You or I would have said he looked calm, even impassive, when room service arrived with a plain omelette and a bottle of mineral water; but Van Cleef would have known better. Anita would have known better. Edward's pale eyes glinted with the barest hint of something secret, something that was far from impassive, but only someone who knew him very well would have known what to look for. Another man would have been flushed and trembling, perhaps, with his eyes darting guiltily from the waitress to the unmarked video cassette that lay on the neatly made bed. Another man would have worn more of his passion on his skin, sweat sheening his forehead and dampening his palms. With Edward, though, no part of his body or posture betrayed the excitement barely held in check; nothing but the eyes gas-flame blue and hungry in his unremarkable face, dark pupils dilated with desire. Van Cleef's fingers would have itched to close over a weapon, but he would have waited just a little, conscious that his protégé's stance was not aggressive, and wondering what could excite the unflappable Edward to such a degree. Anita, never one for diplomacy, would have scowled and asked outright what the hell had got his panties in such a bunch - but she would still have slid her hand over the handle of the Browning as she asked it, just to be on the safe side.

Most people see what they expect to see, and they do not expect to see a hired killer with a terrible eagerness burning in his eyes. The waitress, who had carried the tray carefully up two flights of stairs and had a slight headache, simply saw another anonymous man in jeans and leather jacket who was too tired or too unimaginative to drive out for dinner.

Edward was not tired, nor did he lack imagination.

"Thank you," he said, and handed over a tip that was generous without being memorable. She accepted it with an easy smile and left him to his meal.

Had you asked her later about the guest in room 12, she would have found it hard to describe him. Short, she might have said at last, because Edward was not tall like her boyfriend. Fair, in a blandly WASPish way. No, she would have said, no, he didn't look dangerous at all – he was too skinny, too quietly spoken. She would have shrugged apologetically and said he was nothing special, just an ordinary guy. Not ugly, but not handsome. Not young, but not really old either. Not interesting, not eye-catching. Just – ordinary. Dull. She hadn't noticed, any more than you or I would have done, the tiny give-away shadows and the skilfully hidden bulges in Edward's clothing where his weapons lay. She could not have imagined how very many different ways he knew of killing a man. Or woman. Or monster.

Edward did not rush his dinner, although he remained burningly aware of the video cassette while he sat down at the small table and surveyed the white plate with its burden of food. The meal was adequate. Ted Forrester, Edward's current alter ego -- law-abiding bounty hunter, affable boyfriend, conscientious step-father of sorts and all round good ol' boy – Ted Forrester would have ordered chilidogs, or maybe a cheeseburger with fries, and piled on lots of hot sauce. Ted had a taste for spicy stuff.

Edward poured himself a glass of water and sipped from it thoughtfully. Unlike Ted, Edward had no particular feelings about Mexican food or any other kind. He ate out of necessity, nothing more. Edward, like Ted, avoided alcohol. With Ted, this was because of his father's drink problem, and most of his friends in Santa Fe didn't have the heart to needle him for drinking soda instead of beer. Those who tried found him surprisingly difficult to rile. With Edward, it was simple practicality: he would not touch any substance that threatened to dull his edge.

After another mouthful of water he picked up the knife and fork and cut quietly and quickly into the omelette, never once glancing at the video cassette. Edward prided himself upon his self-control.

He had ordered steak once, in another anonymous room like this one, with another unmarked video like this one, but then they had waited to eat. Anita had lost her appetite after seeing Raina's film – something about seeing two shapeshifters ripping apart the girl they had both just fucked and eating her steaming flesh had put the pride of Animators, Inc off her meal. Edward had made a point of placidly tucking into a plate of steak just to show her that he could. Blood welled up when he dug his fork into the meat, and Anita flinched at the sight. It had given him a sense of satisfaction at the time – petty, no doubt, but irresistible all the same.

He had enjoyed watching Anita's pale face redden and then lose all its colour while she watched the video, but more than that he had enjoyed watching her draw on him far faster than she could have done in years gone by. His girl was learning; even with the distraction of her werewolf boyfriend falling apart in front of her she had still guessed Edward's intention before he made any move to draw his gun, and she hadn't hesitated for an instant. It made him strangely proud.

The last morsel of the omelette passed his lips. He swallowed, then lay the knife and fork neatly side by side on the plate and reached for the video cassette. It looked like an innocent enough thing, but Edward's breath caught ever so slightly when his fingers closed over the hard plastic. He had not watched it yet. It might be blank. The camera might have been knocked at an awkward angle, showing nothing but ceiling or floor. He hoped not. He wanted to see.

He slid the cassette into the video recorder, and his hand was as close to trembling as it had been for a very long time. The weight of his weapons was a familiar comfort as he took a seat, automatically moving into the most defensible place in the room; from where he sat he would have the advantage over anyone breaking through window or door.

He was not thinking about attackers as he gazed at the fuzzy screen and waited for the unfinished film to begin. His mouth was dry.

It was unedited, cutting straight into the action, and the picture wasn't great, but it was enough. It was what he had hoped for. The shape shifter was an amateur in every sense, strutting and posturing in his leather pants and silver piercings. His name was Gabriel, and Edward was thoroughly unimpressed by the banal trappings of sadomasochism. He was a big man, and a wereleopard, but he was weak. Still Edward understood one part of what drove him, and it spoke to Edward too. It was what had made him ensure that this video found its way to him, and not to anyone else. Gabriel had wanted to take on Anita Blake and win; the real possibility that she might kill him was what made her exciting. Edward understood this impulse all too well.

The shape shifter was not in Anita's class, not in Edward's class, but he still recognised, in his dull way, that she was a threat. It excited him. He had the imagination to want her armed when he tried to kill her, although he was stupid enough to let lust get in the way of fighting, and this was his downfall. Edward was not interested in sex with Anita, and he never had been. This, though – this battle of wills and skills, this unchoreographed struggle with its urgency and odd grace – this fascinated him. This was a tiny glimpse of what he was coming to want more and more badly all the time.

Anita was bound, but they had allowed her the knives and she drew them fast enough. Edward's breath caught as he watched each move of the fight and considered what other options existed at each moment. Her choices, he decided, were generally good – and she was fast, far faster than she used to be. More ruthless, with others and with herself. If she was afraid, it didn't show.

If you or I or the girl from room service had happened upon him as he watched the film, we would have probably misunderstood. His attention was wholly focused upon the slight figure of a girl, her face a little over made-up and china-doll pretty, her black hair curling damply as she struggled with the large man on the screen. It would have looked like another guy watching a porn film – something a little kinkier than normal, more violent, more perverse – but we would still have thought it was sex that made the pulse race in the hollow of his throat. We would have been wrong. Edward watched Gabriel tear through the denim and expose Anita's underwear, and all the time he was wondering how badly this would unnerve her, whether this would give Gabriel the edge to do more damage, or whether she would be able to use it to her advantage. He watched Gabriel pin her, watched their bodies roll, heard her breath catch when the wereleopard slid his hands inside the panties, and all the time he was thinking about strategies, thinking about what he might have done in her place, had he been born into a body so small and vulnerable.

She would hate to hear herself described that way, of course, but it was nothing but the truth. Anita Blake was small and curvy, and it was not her body that made her dangerous. It was her will. However many hours she spent jogging, however many martial arts classes she attended, however good a shooter she was, Anita's physique remained a liability. It was something that she worked around, something that she turned to her advantage as much as she could, and he understood that. He respected that. He did it himself. As much of a liability as her sex was, still Anita knew how to use it. Edward was good at seeming harmless, but he was still a man. In his heart of hearts this Gabriel could not conceive of a girl, however much of a hardass she seemed, really being able to kill him. This was one of the things that got him killed.

Edward knew how the story would end – he had, after all, come in at the end of it all himself, had smelt the blood and seen the weapons – and yet watching it unfold on screen like this was a different kind of pleasure. Usually when he saw Anita fight, he did not have the leisure to concentrate on her moves. Usually he was fighting himself, both of them up to their asses in alligators, as she would put it. This was different. It was like a gift, and he savoured it.

The film finished with Gabriel dead, Raina dead, and Anita filthy and half-dressed and ready to rescue more monsters. Her face, when she glanced across at the camera, was utterly unfeminine: blank, ruthless, efficient. It sent a strange thrill through Edward. If Gabriel had seen that expression before, if he had really understood that this was the person who lived inside the curvy little body, he might have thought twice, might have realised how thoroughly outclassed he was. If he hadn't been so blinded by ego and lechery he might have simply shot her when he had the chance. Of course, Edward would certainly have killed him for it, but the leopard wasn't to know that.

Edward paused the movie and stared at her face as she looked coldly into the camera. He knew that expression very well. He had seen it in his own mirror often enough.

Outside the motel, daylight had faded and the room was only lit by the TV. He sat quite still, staring at the fuzzy screen, and realised that he had a knife in his hand that he couldn't remember consciously drawing. He gave a short, startled laugh and resheathed it in one swift movement. It was astonishing, how much she was starting to get to him. After a long moment he flipped the switch to turn the video off, and debated whether to destroy the tape. Anita would want it gone, undoubtedly, and he himself would not want anyone else to see it; he would not want other men looking at her writhe and kick and stab the way he had just done. It was too precious for casual viewers, for people who would see nothing but a half naked girl on the brink of being raped, and find it pitiful or titillating. He bit his lip, and considered; at last he pressed rewind, and resolved to keep it safe.

His pulse was still jumping in his throat. He knew, without thinking about it, that he would watch the film again.

She was not, Edward was almost sure, as good as him. Not quite. Not yet. But then, Edward had been in the business of death, even called Death, for far longer than Anita Blake had been hunting vampires. She still had a streak of sentimentality that startled and amused him, and she still didn't see herself clearly, but she was getting better all the time. He trusted her at his back, and that was something he would say of very few people indeed. She was already a better shooter than most, and one way or another she got the job done; she was not merely skilful, but also creative, flexible, pragmatic and yet capable of extraordinary recklessness at times. She made choices that Edward would never have made, and for reasons that seemed ridiculous to him; and yet, so far, they had always paid off. When it came to the preternatural she was the only one in his league. She knew things he did not know, and she had powers that he did not understand; powers that only interested him when they effected her ability to get the job done, when they effected her edge. Powers that almost made her one of the monsters herself.

Time was sharpening her edge, and in a world where the only interesting things for Edward were the most difficult and challenging of kills, Anita Blake was becoming more intriguing by the day.  
* * *


End file.
